Part 32: Kurtshatov FZ

Excellent! It's time to finally finish The Grizzly Theft. We've tracked down physical prototypes the Dynasty has built off our stolen plans. Now we're going to steal the prototypes back.

A word of caution, before you start this mission make sure you have the following in your HQ or this mission will be nigh impossible:

-1 Mammoth
-1 or more Harvesters
-2500 CR



Our LZ starts out non-functional. I suppose we want to use the element of surprise here and sending in the Albatross is going to be a huge giveaway that we know the prototypes are here.



Look at that, we've got Spiders. Good thing I explained them to you all last update

Let's head out and find these prototypes.



Aw shit. That's an ED mining base in our way. Even running lights off, there's no way we can sneak around it.



So let's take it out!



One tower down. At this point the LZ activates (since the Dynasty very obviously know you're here) and you can send in your HQ forces. Make sure you've got a Mammoth, Harvester and at least 2,500 CR in there.



The mobile ED defenders have shown up. This poses a bit of a problem since our ammunition is quite limited. We'll need to keep them from charging all the way to our LZ before our reinforcements get there.



This Taiga L is the most dangerous unit on the field. If we let him get in range he'll take out our poor Spiders before they can deplete their ammunition reserves.



Focus fire does him in before he can even shoot a single beam at us though.



The Albatross has arrived, carrying The Night Barons, the Mammoth and Harvester I mentioned. The 5,000 CR I brought over will be essential. You see, you don't start this mission with any credits. And you'll need to build some sort of base to succeed (unless you bring over a boatload of plasma units). Without these credits to start your base you'll never get it going. A Refinery + Power Plant costs exactly 2,500 CR so that's the minimum you'll need.



Reinforcements arrived just in time too. This Spider is out of ammo and he's got 2 very angry Pamir tanks bearing down on him. I order him to fall back to the lake you can see on the minimap.

He doesn't make it though



The Night Barons are on the field and their first task is to keep the Dynasty from rebuilding its towers.



The second task is blowing up power plants so the enemy can't extract resources.



Their final task is to clear out these Pamirs and keep them from killing the Mammoth and Harvester. I think the rain and fog give this screenshot a nice cinematic touch.



The Pamirs die very quickly. With the way clear, we can move up our Mammoth.



Unfortunately The Night Barons are starting to run very low on ammo and the ED still has defenses left in the base. Our Refinery is in range of the guns on that mine. So instead of letting it be destroyed, I turn off the power and auto-destroy it. You only lose what money you've put into the building so the loss is only a few hundred credits.

That Siberia L is very, very bad news though. He can kill the Mammoth very quickly. We need to build an Aerial Supply Depot so The Night Barons can reload and take him out. Thankfully our re-positioned Refinery is ready so we just need to clear the area and we can bring in the Harvester and get some income.



The depot is up but the Siberia is in hot pursuit. Run Mammoth, run!



Well shit. Good thing I've got a backup Mammoth at the base. This is why you always should keep a backup Mammoth/Gruz at HQ folks!



The Night Barons reload. The Siberia L could attack our buildings but buildings have such a high resistance to overheating it would take a few minutes of constant fire to destroy one.



Once this Power Plant is gone the threat to our new base will be minimal.



And with the destruction of the last Small Tower the threat to our base from the ED mining base is now zero.



The ED send in a Gruz to rebuild everything, but I'll tell you right now he's not gonna make it.



Our replacement Mammoth finally arrives and all that we have left to do now is destroy the ED refineries.



And defend against a few roaming Pamirs. With the VPC up we can get the rest of our base running now.



There we go! I've built an Ore Transport Refinery this mission since NOAH I is mad about our allocation of resources to Project MARS. This'll get him (it?) off our backs.



The Night Barons are ready to go raiding in the night again.



Our first target is a group of Small Towers just north of the base.



They suffer the fate all Small Towers do when faced with The Night Barons.



If I was going to hide a secret prototype based on stolen UCS designs I think I'd pick here.



Unfortunately it's got a good number of Grozny attack helicopters and Taiga Repairers. We'll need to clear them out before we can look for our missing Grizzlies.



The Groznys cannot see our attack due to our stealthy tactics. Score one for the UCS!



The Groznys continue to flail about while we hunt them down. There's three interesting units on the ground. These are Eurasian Dynasty Trucks. Trucks have no combat abilities but generally are hauling some mission-critical supplies. Keep an eye on them as you'll usually want to kill them rather than let them escape.



The Groznys and Taigas dead, I send the Night Barons back to base to reload. We'll begin scouting at daylight now that we've got air superiority.



Hmm. That looks suspicious. I'm thinking we might be doing some tunneling today.



We've found them! Now all we need to do is bring over a Mammoth and it should be okay, right?



The Night Barons have cleared out all the Power Plants so the Mammoth (or any other unit for that matter) can waltz in untouched. The Trucks tried to flee when the power went down but I'm not about to let them run off given that they may be carrying plans for the Grizzly.



But it doesn't look like the Grizzlies are responding to the Mammoth. We'll need the override codes the ED used to wire them to their systems.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say they're in the tunnels.




Before we go spelunking we'll need to clear a path for the Mammoth.



It's pretty easy when you can overwhelm the enemy with the superior range of the Gargoyle.



Towers down, power down, I think it's time we move in the Mammoth.



Just like the LC, the UCS can use the ED tunnel entrance.



These are extensive tunnels. I'm very confident that the Grizzly control overrides are down here.



Yep! Looks like they're right underneath where we found the Grizzlies.



With pleasure.



Except the Night Barons pretty much did that already.



To make things worse, they were able to get the plans out. It looks like we'll never be able to recover the plans and build Grizzlies of our own, but at least we've got these three.



The Grizzly is the best UCS unit without question. It starts with a whopping 3,600 HP and 75% armor. You can upgrade it to the highest shield level and it has two weapon mounts. One mount is a heavy rocket launcher (which we don't even have yet) and the other is the standard rocket launcher. They're walking death, the only downside is they're incredibly slow.



Sadly, upon completion of the mission our Mammoth ends up trapped underground.



Hey look at that! We've got a rocket headed for the orbital construction site. I'm sure NOAH I's happy now.




This mission would've been much harder had we not established a base. Once again, planning ahead saves the day.



I love Plasma. Do you love Plasma? Everyone should love Plasma!